[Sca-cooks] $2 a day for Food Challenge Starts February 18--Part I

[Sharon Gordon]

Here's some information on a $2 a day for food challenge that will occur beginning 
February 18, 2007.  Everyone here is welcome to join in, and we'd love some
more recipe ideas as well.  What foods are frugal in your area now?

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SPECIAL NOTE TO PEOPLE INTERESTED IN HISTORIC COOKERY OR SIEGE CONTESTS
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You might have fun seeing if you can do this with some of the more frugal middle ages style food.  Put your siege cookery skills to good use by turning a small number of ingredients into an apparently vast array of diverse dishes.

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SPECIAL NOTE TO COMPACTORS
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Many people in the world live on $2 a day or less for everything!  There are more details in some of the links in the discussion below.  If you can imagine yourself in their situation, it can be easier to avoid buying unnecessary items, and you can ramp up your creativity to use items you already have to complete your projects.

This challenge is also a good opportunity to see to what degree you can avoid buying packaging along with your food.

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For additional discussion
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PAWChallenge 

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THEMES
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Will you have a theme for your week?  Specific cuisines may provide you with especially tasty food if the ingredients are frugal favorites in your area.  Some ideas:
*Chinese New Year begins on February 18 this year.  Asian cuisine can make a small collection of ingredients appear to be many different foods.  
*Pasta and canned tomato products often go on sale this time of the year, and many people enjoy Italian food.
*Mexican recipes make it easy to spice up beans.
*In the northern hemisphere, winter root vegetables are in season and make great soups.
*Would you like to do this challenge using as many fresh or whole foods as possible?
*Would you like to simulate the conditions of a young mother who believes there is no time to cook by choosing foods that offer the most calories with the least hands on preparation time?
*Are you intrigued by how much WOW factor or how much you can create gourmet appearing meals with a limited set of ingredients?
*Would you like to maximize the amount of food that comes from local sources? (or given recent weather, had you hoped to before you got a foot of snow???)
*An area's Slow Food type meals are often a good resource for frugal recipes.

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CHALLENGE LEVELS
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$14 for each person in household participating.

*Level 4 (most difficult)
May add water to food or water, salt, and pepper and not count in $14 of food.
May have potlucks or stone soup type meals with others eating at same level as challenge.


*Level 3
May add water to food or water, salt, and pepper  and not count in $14 of food.
May have potlucks or stone soup type meals with others eating at same level as challenge
May add area's spice and oil pack to ingredients.  If your area is not doing this, you can create your own similar to the one Dan's group created which is described below.  Feel free to make the spice pack match your particular ethnic theme within reason (eg no saffron or dried truffles) if you have one.

*Level 2
May add water to food or water, salt, and pepper  and not count in $14 of food.
May have potlucks or stone soup type meals with others eating at same level as challenge
May add area's spice and oil pack to ingredients.
May split bulk purchases with other participants or nonparticipants outside of your household, however your whole part of the bulk purchase must come from your $14.

*Level 1 (note that you can do just some of the additional items)
May add water to food or water, salt, and pepper  and not count in $14 of food.
May have potlucks or stone soup type meals with others eating at same level as challenge
May have potlucks or stone soup type meals with others eating at a different  level from the  challenge as long as the meals are not occurring for the main purpose of  feeding you this week :-) and as long as you contribute food as well..
May add area's spice and oil pack to ingredients.
May split bulk purchases with other participants or nonparticipants, however your whole part of the bulk purchase must come from your $14.
May add foods from your current garden.
May add foods preserved from your garden.  Count the cost of any nonreusable preserving items as part of your $14 such as canning jar lids (but not the ring). Count the cost of any non garden food added during the preservation process such as the sugar in that jar of jam.  No need to count the salt.
May eat your share of food provided at meetings or at work.
May drink beverages provided by work.
May use coworkers excess condiment packages that they share with other coworkers.
May eat meals paid for by work as part of work.
May buy a simulated  3 day food bank box and also a  WIC(if you would qualify) box and add to your week's food and it not count in your $14.
May attend a simulated soup kitchen meal for particpants of this type challenge.

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QUESTIONS FOR PARTIPANTS
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1) What theme(s) did you select for the challenge?
2) At what Challenge Level are you participating?
3) How many in your household are participating?  Note that it's easier to get diversity with more participants.
4) What did you buy and how much did each item cost?
5) What tradeoffs did you make in your grocery list?
6) What events did you skip or do differently due to your partipation in the challenge.
7) What was your menu?
8) What physical, emotional, or mental differences did you notice?
9) Were there any differences in the amount of time you spent cooking this week?
10) To what degree did you carry out your original plan for the week?
11) What do you think about the situation of people who eat at this level for months at a time?



Here is assorted information about the challenge  with ****** between the various posts.
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On the $2 a day challenge site people are asked to try a challenge of eating
on £9.10 ($14 in US) for food for one week for each person.
(Note that $14 now converts to fewer £ than it did previously, however it's suggested to remain at £9.10 to make the challenge feasible.)
http://www.2dollars.org/ (but don't go there yet)

Info about the challenge:
Dan says:

Put very simply, the challenge is to try and live
for one week on only £9.10 of food.


This sounds really hard, but it is totally possible (we promise!) by cooking
your own meals from basic cheap food stuffs like pasta, rice, potatoes and
veg. It is not a fast or starvation diet (apologies to Kate Moss) it is a
chance to find out how the other half live - the half of the world that has
to live on less than $2 a day.

So why would you want to do this? Three reasons:

You can learn how to cook really cheap meals for your self
It's a unique way to find out what it is like to live in poverty - connect
with the statistics!
Have fun socialising and cooking with new people
If you want to know more reasons why, take a look at the why page.

This £1.30 a day is only to go on food, it doesn't include costs of housing,
clothing, tuition, transport and stuff like that. The idea is that you go on
living your life as you do normally, but just eat a little differently -
there is no sleeping out in a cardboard box for a week (although if you want
to, feel free!)

The challenge is being run by the People and Planet network, and the weeks
events will include:

A Ready Steady Cook event! You can take part in a race learning how to cook
really cheap foods
Talks through the week on poverty and what you can do to help
Film night with popcorn and movies!
End of the week party! - with lots of chocolate to gorge yourself on after
the challenge is over
And as if that wasn't enough, there will be lots of resources available to
help you during and before the week, including a $2 a day recipe book with
cheap food from around the world.

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